Surviving the Longest 9 Months of your Life

I recently called an old friend who is also having her first girl (due July 1st) and I just needed the comfort of talking to someone going through the same grind of pregnancy. “How are you?” I asked.

She responded, “this has been the longest 9 months of my life. Ready for the baby to be here”. I couldn’t agree more.I talk to my mom and ask about her pregnancies (8 with 5 kids in the end). With 2 late miscarriages I couldn’t imagine going through that kind of trauma. After my 4th sibling Eric was born she had a pregnancy end at 5 months, only to get pregnant again and have the same sad thing happen. Only a month after her final miscarriage she once again was pregnant with twins! Unfortunately only my sister survived and is now the baby of our family at age 14. Less than 3 years time she was pregnant almost 20 months and only got to have one little healthy baby.There is a saying that God only gives you what you can handle and it must be true because I’m very thankful I have not had to deal with that. If you had to pick someone I guess my mom would be the one to handle it. Today she fondly looks back and tells me “I loved being pregnant”. Wow. I hate to admit it but I really don’t and so far I have had it pretty easy. I just don’t think my hyperactive lifestyle is fit for the ideal pregnant lady.

As you can tell from my recent blogs there isn’t much excitement going on in my personal life. Thankfully I have my husband Alan who has recently been a great outlet for me to survive the boredom of pregnancy. Waiting for a baby to grow is like watching a pot of water on the stove boil- If the pot was as deep as an ocean.

It has been comforting to know that many phenomenal women runners have been through this (some more than once) and have come back. Right now I feel like I have fallen off the earth and am back in a foreign body which has limited me in all physical endeavors. At first when running was taken away I wanted to escape and forget everything that running was and is. When a new magazine came in the mail I would toss it. When my racing team sent out a new email I wanted to delete it. I was stuck in a selfish ‘me me me’ attitude and couldn’t face the fact that I had to be the one to sit out. Not now when I was far from being unmotivated and needing any sort of break. I always wonder why I never want to have a running break – I used to think this was a blessing but now I see it can be a little bit of a curse.

Thankfully all that negativity has changed! With the start of outdoor track season, my enthusiasm and love for the sport came back. I’m not sure if it was just seeing a turning point in Alan’s demeanor when workouts were really starting to click or just knowing that the home stretch for me is here – which means suck it up and enjoy what you can do- and that is being a fan of the sport. Now I can watch races and look up results without the dreaded jealousy. I wouldn’t trade it for actually running myself but it has been fun to take on a different view of things.

I am so lucky to be part of this exciting time of Alan’s return on the track. It has been a welcomed distraction as I waddle (uhh.. just the sound of that word!) through these last few months til June. I have also found that watching Alan’s races can give me a workout –my heart rate picks up to what I’m guessing is distance to maybe even tempo pace and even our baby starts getting active (probably doing her warmup drills). : )

I have to remind myself I don’t need to wish time would go by faster. I’ll have my chance someday to be back in my ‘normal body’ and running again. For now I’m going to enjoy the feeling of my baby kicking and moving around (that part is pretty awesome). I’m going to enjoy taking it easy and not having the urgency of fitting my workout in (ok still waiting for that one to hit).. As this has been my first real break since high school maybe this will be good for me. I am excited knowing that taking care of my body is a way of doing a huge favor for someone else (my baby!) I can take this time to look beyond myself. Every day my husband can step out the door to train or compete I will recognize it is a great day.

I am thankful and know it’s a gift. We only are young once and no matter how much talent or drive you have it is not always a given that you can use it. It is a gift that I will be bringing in a new life with the man I love! Soon all this inconvenience of pregnancy will be forgotten when our little girl comes our world. (I’m just getting a little impatient!) Being 8 months into this pregnancy isn’t so bad. I can do it!!

I love the honestly and beauty in this post. I am 5 months pregnant with my second child, and I have to be honest and say that I am definitely among the women who struggle with pregnancy; I don’t love the process (the body changes, etc), but I LOVE LOVE LOVE the finish line and the little baby who arrives at the end 🙂 I am a semi-competitive runner (sub 3 marathon runner), and I think it is hard for any fit runner to watch her body completely change during pregnancy. It’s neat, though, because even though my body was different after pregnancy, I have so much more respect for it now . . . it carried a baby for 40 weeks, nursed for another 12 months, and then ran another sub 3 marathon 14 months post-baby. Give yourself time after the baby is born to get back into a competitive mind-set – your body will need some rest and a slow build up. But you are totally going to come back from this pregnancy soooo much stronger (and running and life will both take on deeper meanings). I am so excited for you!!!!

I wasn´t “good” as being pregnant, either and can totally relate! The whole “enjoy your pregnancy thing” was kind of annoying, I freaked out when people told me that! Do you know what I enjoy? A tough all-out workout (running or weightlifting, a glass of red wine and some raw milk cheese after that, nothing that is compartible with pregnancy :-))